Mission accomplished

I had always wanted to stay a night at the rambling Mission Inn in Riverside.

The Spanish Courtyard

I got my wish recently and spent a late night hour prowling and poking around this massive yet exuberant old pile of a hotel, which was built over the span of several decades and exhibits a variety of architectural styles and affectations, from Spanish Mission Revival to Venetian Renaissance. It is reportedly haunted.

The Chapel

I didn't see any ghosts, but the place definitely exudes the spooky aura of a Republican stronghold: Richard and Pat Nixon were married on the premises and and Ronald and Nancy Reagan spent their honeymoon here. A special chair built for the visit of extra-hefty president William Howard Taft is on view in the lobby. The Presidential Suites, in a penthouse atop the chapel (above), are worth finding.

My room was the one on the left.

Don't miss the lovely open-air Rotunda, which is best viewed from topside.

The Rotunda

The east façade (not the main entrance)

There's enough here for at least a few more trips. A 75-minute tour is also available, which I won't fail to take next time.

The Italian trattoria on the northwest corner of the plaza.

www.missioninn.com

The Wright stuff

I just about fell out of my chair when these two listings showed up one right after the other on Tuesday evening in my daily email blast of new listings from Coldwell Banker.*

The top listing is for Frank Lloyd Wright's La Miniatura in Pasadena, which is on the market again. Below it, in proper genealogical-chart order, is son Lloyd Wright's neo-Mayan masterpiece on Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz. Alas, I missed the Tuesday open house at the latter. Did anyone go?

The listings are here and here, respectively.

*Your results may vary, since I have my Coldwell Banker search geared to very specific parameters that include pricy looky-loos and more modest dwellings in a limited number of Los Angeles communities.

Crime of the Week

Behold what three-quarters of a million dollars will get you off Laurel Canyon.

2222 Ridgemont Drive.

I should say "off upper Laurel Canyon," lest we forget in which tony neighborhood we are trespassing in search of the exquisitely hideous.

Exuding all the warmth and charm of a Tulsa trailer park, this battleship-gray beauty is listed at $749,000.

Happy weekend.

Wally Park, meet Holly Park

Living just three blocks from Hollywood and Vine, I notice that on weekends club-goers park in my neighborhood and make the trek by foot down Argyle Avenue and Vine Street to the nightlife scene (some of them wearing stiletto heels).

I can't blame the kids for wanting to avoid the inevitable minimum $20 charge for lot parking at their favorite disco or club, but this situation makes resident parking in an already overcrowded neighborhood next to impossible after around 11 pm.

There's also the safety factor of 20-somethings with clutch purses and clad in scanty black skirts the size of guest towels traipsing under and around the Hollywood Freeway, where the homeless camp has recently grown to the proportions of a small Alaskan village.

Here's a much-needed solution: Holly Park.

Holly Park (proposed).

This new structure, situated at a strategic central location such as the corner of Hollywood and Vine—where, mirabile dictu, there is already an empty lot—would offer parking for much less (one would certainly hope) than the gougers at the surface lots charge.

A free shuttle service would make the circuit of eastern downtown Hollywood: Hollywood Boulevard, Vine Street, the Cahuenga nightlife corridor, Sunset Boulevard, and perhaps even Franklin Village.

The building would be as green as any such structure could be, covered in low-maintenance heat- and drought-tolerant foliage in the manner of Patrick Blanc's vertical gardens and, of course, solar-powered for a near-carbon-zero environmental footprint.

I realize that the signage is less than subtle, but once the service is known, the signs could be swapped out for something more sedate.

Just an idea.

A kindred spirit

I just discovered the very engaging Houses of Hancock Park blog.


Like me, the blogger has a predilection for 1920s Hancock Park manses, refined Sycamore Avenue apartment buildings, and limestone-faced New York townhouses, as well as a negative appreciation of the gloriously ill-conceived and inappropriate monstrosities that blight the Los Angeles landscape, like the one below:

"Doors to nowhere" at 532 S. Arden Boulevard.

His street-by-street catalogue raisonée of Hancock Park houses, with critique, is commendable.

184 S. Hudson Ave.

Urbane. Stately. Sophisticated. Who would choose Beverly Hills over Hancock Park, really now?

Fabled and fabu in WeHo

Today's Curbed mention of the Craigslist post for a rare townhouse apartment opening at WeHo's fabled Four Gables building, reminded me that there were a couple of even more enticing listings a few days ago for apartments in the fabu La Fontaine building, just a couple of blocks east on Franklin Avenue. (The building's actual address is on Crescent Heights Blvd.)

La Fontaine, West Hollywood

La Fontaine is also a Leland Bryant building, although in a different, turretless and more severe French Renaissance idiom. Both apartments—a 2 bedroom and a 3-bedroom—were listed at $4500 per month.

There are no interior shots of the 3-bedroom, but the 2-bedroom has a double-height living room and an oeil-de-boeuf off the dining room.

The 2-bedroom, in the building's western wing.

I'm not one to swoon at celebrity, but for those who relish such info former tenants of the building reportedly include Bette Midler, Steve Martin, Cheryl Crowe and Dane Cook.

I'm not sure these apartments are still available, but if I had that kind of dough I'd be on the phone first thing in the morning to find out.